Coach Barry Alvarez was seen as a hero when he agreed to coach the Rose Bowl after the departure of Coach Brett Bieleman to Arkansas. The shine is off of Alvarez's halo for some, because he wants $225,000, or 1/12th of Bielma's annual salary for coaching the game. Callers to my show were torn on this. My boss and I discussed it in the hallway and he felt Alvarez was out of line for asking for the money. I don't. But that doesn't mean he should get it.

Alvarez sees himself taking on additional duties and thinks he should get additional money. That's not unreasonable. But the UW is a public entity facing tight budgets. So the Board of Regents perhaps should say no. Alvarez can ask for anything; it's his employers job to say no. Now, certainly, some requests on Alvarez's part would be unreasonable. I don't think this one is. That doesn't mean the Regents should say yes. A request can be reasonable but still not be possible to be filled. This is why public employee unions had to be reined in. It became impossible for management to say no.

As long as the Regents can say no, and they probably should, I don't think Alvarez asking is out of line. That said...he handled this poorly. He created the warm fuzzy feel of saying yes to the players request for him to coach and then we learn he wants money. And complaining that he pulled double duty early on as AD doesn't help his case either.